3 ms·

With little remaining of Champlain Towers, how will we find answers?

2 points by carride 5y ago

aurizon 5y ago
This is what is called a 'progressive collapse'.The badly corroded rebar at the pool support level seem to be the first site that collapsed. This would be in the weakest column. As it failed it's strength would go to near zero - yet there are 12 floors above it - and one vertical beam has failed.The weight born by this beam would suddenly be transferred to the 4 adjacent beams accompanies by a shock. Possibly one of these fails and we now have 2 failed beams - and it progresses. Had all the beams had all 4 rebar strings(as dictated by the plans) the structure might have been able to absorb this shock and remain standing? We will never know, the corroded and insufficient rebar underwent a progressive or 'pancake' failure and the furniture and people were compressed into a gap of 6 inches or so on each floor as the pictures show. Where hundreds of tons of concrete is concerned the wooden parts have essentially zero strength and they would pancake to a few inches or so. Those people died in a fraction of a second.Someone on the topmost floors might have a chance as some strong furniture migt have been able to act as a bridge to make a survivors cavity, as is often found in earth quake collapses. This is an example of people driven by an extreme pressure to save money and spend nothing on maintenance. I suggest that the cash flow of this building be examined to see how badly the owners looted the treasury over the past 10 years. One would expect a 40 year old building to be fully paid for and would need only $$ for maintenance and wages to be drawn out. I suspect it was used as a cash cow = neglected maintenance. Being a condo, each suite has its own balance sheet, but the owners have a responsibility to fund the reserve fund to do the repairs = the managers are on the hook, and it may have been a pro condo management company that cheated the structure of the needed work. There were photos that showed only half of the rebar in the plans was in place = criminal liability - but I hear the original people in charge died a few years ago...

2 points by carride 5y ago

This is what is called a 'progressive collapse'.The badly corroded rebar at the pool support level seem to be the first site that collapsed. This would be in the weakest column. As it failed it's strength would go to near zero - yet there are 12 floors above it - and one vertical beam has failed.The weight born by this beam would suddenly be transferred to the 4 adjacent beams accompanies by a shock. Possibly one of these fails and we now have 2 failed beams - and it progresses. Had all the beams had all 4 rebar strings(as dictated by the plans) the structure might have been able to absorb this shock and remain standing? We will never know, the corroded and insufficient rebar underwent a progressive or 'pancake' failure and the furniture and people were compressed into a gap of 6 inches or so on each floor as the pictures show. Where hundreds of tons of concrete is concerned the wooden parts have essentially zero strength and they would pancake to a few inches or so. Those people died in a fraction of a second.Someone on the topmost floors might have a chance as some strong furniture migt have been able to act as a bridge to make a survivors cavity, as is often found in earth quake collapses. This is an example of people driven by an extreme pressure to save money and spend nothing on maintenance. I suggest that the cash flow of this building be examined to see how badly the owners looted the treasury over the past 10 years. One would expect a 40 year old building to be fully paid for and would need only $$ for maintenance and wages to be drawn out. I suspect it was used as a cash cow = neglected maintenance. Being a condo, each suite has its own balance sheet, but the owners have a responsibility to fund the reserve fund to do the repairs = the managers are on the hook, and it may have been a pro condo management company that cheated the structure of the needed work. There were photos that showed only half of the rebar in the plans was in place = criminal liability - but I hear the original people in charge died a few years ago...